ANDERSEN, iin'difr-srn, ITANs CHRISTIAN (1805-75). A celebrated Danish writer, styled the "children's poet," whose best poetry is his prose. He was born at Odense, Denmark, April 2, 1805. The child of poor and shiftless parents, he had little instruction and few associates, hut his dramatic instinct was stimulated by La Fontaine and the Arabian Nights, and a visit of a theatrical company to Odense, in ISIS, led Linn to seek his dramatic fortune in Copen hagen (I8I9). where for four years he worked diligently, but produced nothing of note. Ile gained a scholarship, however, and friends, who in 1829 enabled him to publish A Journey on Foot from Holm Canal to the East Point of Amager, an arabesque naively plagiarized and parodied from the German romanticists. Fan tasks a»d Sketches, sentimental and rather mawkish poems, followed in 1831, after which he made a tour of Germany, the first of many wanderings. This inspired Silhouettes, a book with admirable pages of description. In 1835 he essayed the Fair,, Talcs, by which he was to achieve world-wide recognition. The classic Tinderbox and Big Claus and Little Claus are also of this year. The was, however, disposed to underrate his "sleight of hand with fancy's golden apples," devoting himself to novels. The Improrvisatore (1835), 0. T. (1836), and Only a Pithno- (1837), which gave him a European reputation for picturesque description, humor, and pathos of the romantic type. In the last, there are interesting autobiographical touches; but there is no clear character-drawing in any of them, and this lack made his repeated dra matic essays uniform failures. lie was still to write delightful impressions of travel, as in A Poet's Bazaar (1842), In Sweden (1849), and In Spain (1800). He wrote other novels, The Two Baronesses (1849) and To Be or Not To Be (1857), and an epic failure, Ahasuerus (1847) ; but the Picture Book. Without Pictures (1840) had revealed his best talent to him as an inter preter of child nature. Between 1852 and 1862
he printed nine small volumes of stories, and fin ished the last of them in 1872. Ilis last years were unharassed by criticism, and attended by all the honor and love that should accompany old age. His literary jubilee occurred in 1869, and he died at Copenhagen, August 4, 1875, after a brief and painless illness.
In appearance, Andersen was limp and very ungainly. His nose was large, his neck and limbs long and lank, and his hands and feet very large; yet be fancied himself distinguished-look ing, and had a child's delight in dress and deco ration. His character, too, hovered between the child-like and the childish. He never realized the limitations of his genius. He did not like children, and he was not personally attractive to them. He was a shrewd observer, but self absorbed and out of touch with his political gen eration. His literary style is faulty, but it re fleets marvelously the vivid imagery of juvenile fancy. He had at his finger-tips all the vener able devices of the nursery to spur attention and kindle sympathy. No writer looks at nature so wholly with the child's eyes as he. none so inter penetrates narration with the smiles, the fears, and the very intonations of childhood. His per sonifications may tease the adult fancy. but they are the natural drama of children. Andersen's works are Englished in ten uniform but unnum bered volumes. :Mary Howitt's is still the best of many translations of the Talcs, though it is far from faultless. A sumptuous centenary edi tion of the Tales appeared (1900) under the pa tronage of the Danish Government simultane ously in six languages. Andersen's Autobiogra phy was compiled by Jonas (Berlin, 1879). R. Nisbet Bain's Life of Andersen (New York, 1895) is the best in English.